The new radio (NR) design for Fifth Generation (5G) cellular radio access technology (RAT) is widely assumed to divide radio network functionality between entities referred to as centralized units (or control units) (CU) and distributed units (DU). The division of the radio protocol stack between these entities may be flexible, but at least it is expected that the upper layers, e.g., the user plane comprising the packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) sublayer and the control plane comprising the PDCP+radio resource control (RRC) sublayers would be in the CU, while the physical (PHY) sublayer would be in the DU. The intervening Layer 2 sublayers may be in either the CU or the DU. However, it is likely that the media access control (MAC) sublayer would also be located in the DU to avoid backhaul latency in the scheduling process.